Over the last several weeks I have noted from conversations and e-mails in response to our Jesuit Advocates action alert that the Ignatian Family is dismayed and alarmed by the rhetoric coming from Secretary Johnson and the White House, attributing the rising numbers of children fleeing harm to due process protections enacted as part of the TVPRA. Our universities, and ministries share a close relationship with the Central American Jesuits which has its roots in the assassination of six Jesuits and their housekeeper at the University of Central America in El Salvador in 1989 by Salvadoran troops some trained by our government in Fort Benning , Georgia. It was out of this tragedy that Jesuit ministries began to intentionally partner with our Central American counter-parts, a relationship that continues to this day. We have been tracking the changing migration pattern from the Northern Triangle since 2010 and it was indeed no surprise to us that numbers of children fleeing violence have risen over the last several years – we first noted the shift in violence trends in the region in 2006 and then witnessed the fall out of the 2009 coup in Honduras which indeed impacted the security situation in the entire region (which is the size of two and a half Tennessees).

On a personal note as someone who works regularly with Honduran Jesuits and lay-colleagues, and has visited the vacant neighborhoods, besieged schools and communities in San Pedro, Progreso, and Teguz, I’m shocked by the choices my government is currently making. I expect better.

The deportation flight to Honduras on July 14th of seventeen young mothers with their children was greeted with much fanfare with the Honduran first lady, a luxury bus, and armed police escorts greeting the girls, boys and women at the airport and transporting them to the orange tents erected as temporary shelters.

What we are concerned about is what happens after the cameras are turned off and the crowds go away. Who will monitor the fate of these families and children deported to the world’s most violent city? Jesuit and lay partners in Honduras reported that even the NGOs that have an interest in monitoring and working with the families do not have the capacity to do follow-up with all of them. I dearly hope (but sincerely doubt) that the U.S. government’s decisions are being informed not just by political expediency, or by a government with a very troubling human rights record but also by civil society organizations on the ground and by our moral and legal obligations.

The child murder rate in Honduras has risen rapidly over the several months of the Juan Orlando Hernandez administration with murders of children and youth spiking from 70 per a month during the Lobo Administration to a staggering 90 per a month in the first three months of the Hernandez administration. May saw 102 children and youth slain. Grisly killings are attributed to gangs (children’s bodies – young children between the ages of 2 and 13 have been found in communities bearing signs of torture, nine children appeared in a San Pedro neighborhood in May, bound and gagged, their skin half-peeled from their faces). In San Pedro we have very credible reports of vigilante death squads composed of off-duty police officers going into poor communities and picking off children.

Who will hold the U.S. accountable for a rush to deport the most vulnerable? Who will hold Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador governments accountable for the harms facing children and youth throughout poor communities where the governments have at best been forced to cede control to criminal actors and at worst are complicit in the targeting of children?

https://ignatiansolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Screen-Shot-2014-07-16-at-3.11.29-PM.png270270Guest Bloggerhttp://ignatiansolidarity.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/ISN_Color_Transparent_Large.pngGuest Blogger2014-07-16 15:12:352017-07-10 13:21:55Who will hold the U.S. accountable for a rush to deport the most vulnerable?

maybe if we turn away from government and turn to god instead of using government to break the 10th commandment unwittingly the holy spirit can direct us back on the path to help the poor in guiding them to our father in heaven.We can feed the poor better then government who hold God in contempt.The political agenda might not be the best approach. I do not know when the end is. But pray that the signs we see today we all will look to Jesus for light and not lead to temptation for economic or any other worldly things.Michael .

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The Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN) is a national social justice network inspired by the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola. ISN was founded in 2004 and is a lay-led 501(c)3 organization working in partnership with Jesuit universities, high schools, and parishes, along with many other Catholic institutions and social justice partners.